A 16-year-old girl in the Maldives who confessed to having pre-marital sex is
to be publicly flogged, after a court ruling that has provoked an outcry
from human rights organisations.

The girl, who has not been named, was convicted by a court under Sharia after
admitting to family members that she had sex with a 29-year-old man in July.
He was sent to prison for ten years after a court hearing yesterday on the
remote Raa atoll, in the Indian Ocean archipelago, about 200km north of the
Maldives capital of Malé. He was found guilty of having sex with a